


Stay Where You Belong

by Shoulderpads



Series: Exit the Void [7]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Eye Trauma, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stick with me I don’t think it’s that intense but I should tag these for safety, Trauma, at this point? Probably
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28689582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shoulderpads/pseuds/Shoulderpads
Summary: “You died, old man.”“So have you,boy. That hasn’t seemed to stop you yet.”
Relationships: Riku & Vanitas (Kingdom Hearts), Sora & Vanitas (Kingdom Hearts), Sora's Mother & Vanitas (Kingdom Hearts), Vanitas & Xehanort (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Exit the Void [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1318184
Comments: 30
Kudos: 67





	1. In Memories

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so this isn’t the continuation of “On the Mend.” I’ll get back to that eventually, I have to do some character research first. So today, I’ll just hurt y’all.

He wakes to a pebble digging into his back and the whistle of wind. The sky above him is hazy and orange and for a second he thinks about closing his eyes and falling back asleep. But that second is all it takes to remember that this isn’t right. This isn’t his room with the almost too soft bed and the glow in the dark stars Sora snuck on the ceiling. 

He sits up with a surge of breath, taking in the solid cliffs around him. He runs his fingers up and down his arms, over the grooves of the darksuit suctioned to skin that’s just started to take on some color. He supposes it’s not impossible that he could’ve decided to suit up and travel the lanes between to come here. Maybe he even did it in his sleep?

Still, the sight of his old home chills him. 

Before he can think on it too long, he opens a dark portal and prepares to go home and forget this ever happened, but something in his peripheral causes turns his head. 

There on the horizon, he sees the silhouette of something. To others it might be indistinguishable, but to Vanitas, he recognizes the shape of hunched shoulders and hands hidden behind a back instantly. 

His throat tightens. But he swallows it clear. 

He turns back to his corridor, only to find it gone, and when he opens a new one, it spirals closed immediately. He snaps toward the approaching figure with a molten glare, curling his lip. 

“Hey, asshole!” he shouts, a tingling adrenaline in his blood. “You can’t keep me here!”

“Oh?” the Mas-Xehanort’s voice carries on the wind. “Is that so, apprentice?”

Vanitas grinds his teeth at the title. “I’m not yours anymore!” He bounces minutely on the balls of his feet as Xehanort comes into sharper and sharper focus. 

Xehanort chuckles. “My dear boy, you wound me with such defiance.” His arms stretch out, fingers articulating. 

He’s too close. Too close. If he lunged forward, he could strike with his keyblade from this range, yet Vanitas can’t move. Xehanort didn’t even cast Stop, but there’s a vice on his muscles anyway. 

“You died, old man,” Vanitas says when they’re an arm’s length away. 

Sora told him so. Sora wouldn’t lie. This is an illusion, a fake. 

“So have you, _boy_ ,” Xehanort says. “That hasn’t seemed to stop you yet.”

Xehanort reaches out, his gloved hand cupping the side of Vanitas’s exposed face. Vanitas’s rib cage twitches with shallow breaths. 

“We may have been separated for a short time.” Xehanort thumb strokes back and forth on the edge of the socket. “But worry not, we can fix this.”

The hand tightens, the other one following. Vanitas thrashes in the grip, his head locked in place. No amount of kicking or clawing deters Xehanort, his body like a mass of steel. His index fingers curl over Vanitas’s lids, prying them upward, the wind drying immediately. The thumbs lift from the sockets and poise over Vanitas’s red eyes like miniature eclipses. He spits curses and pleas as he beats the sides of Xehanort’s arms with closed fists. The thumbs press down oh so softly, their caress gentle but increasing in pressure.  
A whine escapes Vanitas, his hands scrabbling against Xehanort’s wrists. It burns, springing hot tears. He can’t tell they’re not blood. There’s grains of sand stuck between his cornea and the thumbs trying to squish his eyes into his skull. It bursts colors through his vision, finally settling on a blanket of yellow as the pressure lifts. 

When it clears, it’s dark. He fears he’s gone blind until the details of his room start coming into focus. It’s not calming, for he knows if he looks at himself in the bathroom mirror, his eyes will stare back yellow. 

“You’ve been made weak.”

Vanitas nearly jumps out of his skin at the sound of the Master’s voice behind him. He wants to say no, wants to tell the Master he’s wrong, but he can’t. His time with Sora has undoubtably made him softer, but it was so sweet. The idea of giving it up made something in him twist. 

A hand lands on his shoulder, squeezing a little too tight to be comforting. 

“I am disappointed in you. You’ve started to believe that you are something you’re not.” The Master turns him around to face him. “I can remedy this.”

A shiver goes down Vanitas’s spine. 

“I understand that mistakes happen. The light is very tantalizing, but you must not forget what you are. It’s alright. I’ll help you. Everything will go back to how it was, in balance. The way it’s meant to be.”

There’s a quick flash of light, and then Vanitas’s chest erupts in pain. It throbs in time with the back of his mind, old pain, familiar and nauseating. The Master had plunged the sharp tip of the X-Blade between Vanitas’s ribs. It scraps against his bones and pokes at his lungs before finding his heart. He snaps out of his shocked stupor, inhaling for the first time in half a minute. 

“Stop.” He wraps his hands around the blade, cutting into his gloves as he pulls and pulls at the weapon lodged in his chest. “Stop it!”

He repeats himself, yelling louder in the hopes that Sora might hear and offer assistance-the kind of weakness the Master was berating. But no one comes. The Master has either slit both their throats while they slept, or they’ve come to their senses and finally realized they should’ve never let a monster into their house. And well. The Master never dealt with things quickly or silently. 

The tip of the blade scratches the budding mass of light Ienzo found in his heart. Vanitas gasps, trying so hard to wrench himself free. 

The blade catches on the light. 

“Don’t. Don’t, don’t, don’t. Please! Please don’t,” Vanitas blubbers, panting as the blade works like a scalpel, pulling his heart apart. 

The Master slowly, carefully wedges between the pieces of his heart. The light part pulses rapidly, arrhythmically from the dark. The light starts to pull away, the dark clinging to it with synapses that tear and shrivel away. 

Vanitas cries to deaf ears. His knees go slack. He is held up only by the blade. 

When it pulls out, his light comes with it. Vanitas falls, but in a twist of vertigo, he’s stood above his body. It rests prone on his bed, his night shirt riding up, and the legs of his shark pj pants rumpled unevenly. Its eyes are half lidded and staring at the ceiling, dull, the color of dried blood. 

He shoots a hand out to grab his limp wrist, but it closes in on itself as his body shatters into little orbs of light. He tries to catch them to stop their ascent, but they burn his fingers, sizzling against the dark suit. 

He crumples to his knees, arms still resting against the bed, reaching out. 

His master sets something gingerly on the floor beside him. 

“I’ll be back at dawn. Be ready to train then.”

And then he’s gone. 

Vanitas looks down at the object. It’s his helmet. He hadn’t been able to call on it since it shattered in the graveyard, and sometimes he misses it. It hid him away from the world for so long, and apparently that made him very easy to read when it no longer shadowed his face. 

He grabs the helmet, lifting to inspect it in the moonlight coming through the window. 

And drops it almost immediately. 

He leans back over the glass shield and prays he just saw a trick of the light or shadow, but no, his reflection stares at him with glowing yellow eyes like two sickly moons, but that’s all that can be said of the image that tilts its head and blinks in time with him. 

With unsteady fingers, he finds his jaw and traces over to where his lips should be, where his nose should be, but there’s nothing. The surface is as smooth and unblemished as a sea stone. Revulsion crashes into him and he tries to find some kind of seam he can pry open, but it’s like a film over his mouth, his jaw wired shut, his tongue held still by vinyl and packaging fill and he can’t move it because it isn’t _there._

His vocal cords strain against a blocked passageway. He volleys a trapped cloud of stale air between his lungs and throat. He doesn’t suffocate, for monsters have no need for breath. 

He claws at the level surface of his face, gouging into the black that heals itself like memory foam. 

The helmet sits on the floor and mocks him, mirroring him both in reflection and design. Sure, maybe he hadn’t particular _liked_ sharing a face with Sora and having the one he’d worn for twelve years wiped off, but having any face was better this-the face of an abomination, the truth. 

He screams soundlessly, throat going raw, and snatches his helmet up. He brings it down on the hardwood. It bounces back up, throwing him off his knees to his butt. It only makes him bring it down harder. Slapping it repeatedly, denting the wood. His chest heaves with the effort and his cut off cries. Maybe this will wake up the Taiyōs to check up on him. Maybe ruining their perfect little floor will finally get their attention the way being impaled wouldn’t. Then they’ll see. They’ll see what a wretched creature he really is and Sora won’t pull his punches and let him monologue this time, and he can go back to the shadows he was never meant to leave until the next time someone finds it appropriate to pluck him back into the sun. 

He falls forward when the mask shatters, his hand landing flat in the debris. It doesn’t hurt, but when he pulls his hand away, there’s glass imbedded in his palm. The chunks go past the dark suit. He can feel them shift in his flesh when he wiggles his fingers. The cuts well up with tiny springs of black the flow down his arm in the scalloping of his suit. He knows for a fact that he’d bled red back in the graveyard. Yet he’s like a snapped fountain pen, dripping ink onto the splintered floor. 

The growing puddle twitches and convulses and it’s no surprise when ruby eyes blink up at him. The unversed pulls itself up like a potter’s clay, and Vanitas’s uninjured hand snaps forward to grip it around the throat. It thrashes in his hold, a disgusting, squirming thing. He tightens his fist and it dissolves into putty once more. 

And it doesn’t even _hurt_. 

The fight drains out of him and he drops, his face just barely missing the pool of filth. 

With another wave of vertigo, he was on his back, looking at glow in the dark stars. He slapped a hand over his face and traced his features with maybe a little too much pressure. He let out a breath from his tight chest and threw an arm over his eyes, the other hand clenching his sheets in an iron grip. 

Then he heard the skittering. 

He surged into a sitting position, gaze sweeping over his room. Xehanort was gone, but unversed stirred. His lip curled at the sight. He hadn’t made any since cutting off those half formed ones in the living room. He’d been _so good._

Out of the corner of his eye, a flood had crawled towards the door, beginning to flatten itself at the crack. Vanitas swung out of his bed, left arm a pivot on the mattress as his right summoned Void Gear and his legs carried him halfway across the room with a thump. He just barely caught the flood with the tip of his blade, bisecting it easy as the butter Kumo put on cooked bread. It stung and he hated the relief that gave him. 

He whirled on the other creatures, and they shrank back, but he hadn’t reacted to that behavior since he was thirteen. So he hacked through them, straining to keep the pain from starting the circle anew. And when it was done, he let himself breathe, hunched over on hands and knees. His skin had a thin gloss of sweat, and his arms trembled with exertion, pain, and the terror still trying to claw out of him. He squeezed his eyes shut and just tried to take deep breaths and scrub the images painting the backs of his eyelids away. And maybe his breaths were actually short and loud against the night, and maybe he was still buzzing with emotion, and maybe a trickle of his shadow would try to rise every few moments, but he was _trying_.

“Vanitas?”

He stiffened, any progress towards calm vanished. He stuffed his hand in his mouth the smother his sca-startled cry. 

“Vanitas, you ok in there?” said Sora, muffed from the door between them. “I thought I heard a noise like you fell or something.”

 _Go away, go away, go away,_ Vanitas chanted in his mind. His stomach coiled tight at the thought of Sora coming in and seeing _this._ A few more floods had managed to pop up, sniffing at him. He could practically feel the darkness splashing against the fingers he’d sunk his teeth into. 

“Well ok, I hope I didn’t wake you up then. G’night.” Sora footsteps receded. 

Vanitas let his forehead rest on the cool ground, fingers threaded in his hair. He allowed himself a few solid and frantic tugs before collecting himself enough to dispose of the extra floods and sit under his window to wait for dawn.


	2. In Blades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foolish writer thinks this could’ve been contained in two chapters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it seems I may have confused some of y’all last time. I have “needs to make things subtle and full of riddles” disease. To clarify, Vanitas wakes up from his dream when the writing changes from present tense to my usual past tense. Or the moment where he’s back in his bed and looking at his glow in the dark stars. Sorry if I freaked anyone out last time! But I was sure to have a quick turnaround to easy it 
> 
> WARNING: slight slight emetophobia 
> 
> Also, I forgot to mention last time, but welcome to my first piece as a college graduate. I can’t believe how long this series has stuck with me. And Nomura is not letting me off his wild ride any time soon.

“Vanitas, you ok, kiddo?”

He blinked, momentarily confused. He stared at the plate in front of him. Two eggs, Kumo said “fried,” Sora said “sunny side up,” and a strip of curled meat pillowed on a round cake that Sora had arranged with glee stared back at him. 

“Vanitas?”

Oh. It was Kumo who spoke. He met her eyes. 

“Yes?”

“You haven’t touched your breakfast, kiddo. I just wanted to make sure you’re alright. I can make something else if-“

“No, it’s fine. Looks good,” he fisted a fork and poked at the eggs. “I was just...thinking.”

“Well, don’t think too hard,” Sora laughed. “You looked like a total zombie.” Unease come off him in greasy waves. 

Vanitas scowled, thinking back to the movie with Kairi. “An unfair comparison. I am much faster and smarter than a zombie.”

“I hope you don’t crave human flesh either.” Sora reached across the table and brought over a bottle of brown, viscous liquid. “Here, try some syrup on your pancake.”

Vanitas complied and picked at his breakfast despite the way his stomach protested. The Taiyōs shared a lack of subtlety, and Vanitas saw them plain as day stealing looks at him. So, he took another bite of the pancake in hopes to appease them. It sat in his mouth sticky and sweet. It turned to mush as he chewed it, trying to convince his throat to relax enough for him swallow the cloying goo. 

Really, he’d rather have dumped the whole plate in the trash, march back up to his room, not go to sleep, and stare at the wall until he didn’t have to tense his muscles in order to stop the shaking. Or maybe he’d settle for locking himself in the bathroom, standing in front of the sink, staring at his red eyes, the blackheads on his nose, and the curve of his mouth, maybe run a bath, and not go to sleep. 

His eyes stung, dry and sticky. When he blinked to wet them, the effort to open them back up increased. They wanted to slide apart and leave everything fuzzy and out of focus. His ears did the same, washing over the Taiyōs words like the waves surrounding them. A thousand tiny fingers pulled the muscles around his scalp and tapped his skull. They weighed him down and threatened to make him intimate with the smiley face on his plate. 

Mostly his mind wandered though. He slid his tongue across his teeth and the seam of his lips to remind himself they were there. He tried to find new cold spots on his cutlery to catch the sensation against the pads of his fingers or follow the wood grain of the floor with his toes. Still, he could feel watchful eyes over his shoulder. Xehanort had not show up with the rising sun, hadn’t made an appearance at Kumo’s shuffling in the kitchen, didn’t manifest when she knocked on his door and invited him to breakfast. But Vanitas still looked behind him, sure he’d see the keyblade master just behind him. If he wiggled his fingers, he could feel the pull of the cut on his palm that wasn’t there. 

“Hey, Vanitas.” Sora nudged him with his elbow. 

Vanitas flipped the grip of his knife and jerked towards Sora before halting himself. 

“Me and Riku are gonna meet up on the beach to spar this afternoon,” Sora continued, heedless of Vanitas’s reaction. “You wanna come?”

Vanitas sat up straighter in his chair. This was... “With keyblades?”

“Yeah?” Sora cocked his head. “What else? We haven’t used wooden swords in years.”

Trust. This was trust. Sora was personally inviting him to summon his keyblade and swing it towards him and his dearest friend. He was trusting Vanitas to draw his weapon and attack, and trusting that he wouldn’t go for the kill. 

The idea of the familiar weight in his hand, the rush of adrenaline in his blood, and the springing of his muscles, too fast for thoughts to keep up almost made him giddy with glee. 

“Yes,” he said, voice edging on raw. “Please.”

“Awesome! It’ll be fun.” Sora smiled that smile that made Vanitas squint at his bright sincerity. 

“Yes. Well.” He crosses his arms. “I’m always willing and prepared to put you lights in your place,” he sneered. 

“Ok, I can’t wait. Riku hasn’t gotten to face you yet, so that’ll be fun. He _is_ a master though, so I don’t know if you’ll be able to put him in his place.” Sora winked. 

Vanitas huffed. “It’s a meaningless title, really.”

—

Vanitas spent the rest of the morning fiddling with the gummi phone Ienzo had made for him. He poked around with the different settings and took photos of random things. The stuffed bear, the foam gun, his crisply made bed, the clothes in his closet, the lilac of his wall, a palm tree he could see from his window, Kumo’s favorite tea set, the back of her head when she wasn’t looking. He scrolled back through them a few times, tracing the edges of the images with his fingernail. He called Sora a few times, letting it ring a few times just to hear the theme tune and the scramble of feet before immediately hanging up. He read through some of the entries in heartless and nobodies too. 

Those creatures interested him. He’d not seen many of them before being brought back. Xehanort had taught him about heartless a little bit back in the day. He’d talk animatedly with arm gestures about the fascinating creatures living in the dark, made from the stuff and nothing else. They didn’t even have hearts! He’d summon them sometimes, usually just little shadows and they’d sit together to watch the creature twitch and shuffle. In all honesty, they were pretty cute until they sensed the pair’s hearts and started trying scratch with their claws. 

“They’re draw to the darkness in people’s hearts,” Xehanort said, holding the creature at bay with his foot. “But with enough darkness, and mastery of it, I believe they can be controlled. Maybe someday you’ll be able to do that.”

Xehanort struck the shadow down then. 

It had made him flinch and give a startled cry. The shadow hadn’t been more dangerous than a cat, and if the Master could summon them, why not just banish them back to their realm instead of killing them? Even without hearts, were they not alive? The idea of killing made him ill. The shadow hadn’t asked to be taken from its home and put in front of two humans. He hated training against them, and his frustration with murdering the creatures grew alongside his trepidation as Xehanort summoned larger swarms that tore his skin and bloodied the graveyard. It hadn’t helped that he still hadn’t gotten quite used to fighting with his right arm as Xehanort instructed. His wrist felt flimsy with his slashes and clumsy on his guard. 

Looking back, that was what really pushed it. Xehanort wasn’t ever an easygoing master. Getting nicked was common and a sign to be faster next time, but sessions after the heartless left him looking like a tiger with all the cuts. The heartless wouldn’t stop a killing blow like the Master. The fights against them were real, terrifying, and sickening. If cute ant shaped shadows could make his heart pound, then lithe and humanoid neos, towering taller than him on all sides locked him up on the spot. Too much. 

He wished more than anything that he’d done as he was told and just killed those stupid neoshadows. 

He loosened his grip on the gummi phone, his finger joints had started to ache. 

Heartless were everywhere now. Half the time, Sora was running off to cull hoards of them nowadays. They’d skittered around the graveyard until Xemnas would order the puppet to dispose of them, and they’d picked fights with his unversed until Sora’d shown up to the factory and drawn their collective attention. 

As he scrolled through adversaries catalogue, he had the creeping sensation that he’d seen some of these heartless before. He was sure they weren’t ones Xehanort had summoned during his training or any he’d seen in passing last year. He could look at them and instinctually tell how best to dispatch them. Some needed a swift slice, others a heavy blow, and some fell under magic. He felt the same as he had in the arcade. 

Instead he flicked to the other categories. Nobodies were new. The way they moved, smooth and graceful, yet rubbery and viscous made them sickening to look at too long. 

He scowled at the section for his own unversed. Those were _his_. They weren’t there for some bug to study and catalogue. 

“Hey, you ready?”

Vanitas looked up from his phone. Sora scratched his nose, looking down at him. 

“Oh. Yes. Finally. Took you long enough.” Vanitas stood and rolled his shoulders. 

“Yeah. Well.” Sora shrugged. “You liking your phone?”

They began their walk towards the docks. 

“It’s...useful.”

“For sure! I love that I can contact my friends from worlds away. And that I can take pictures of all my fun memories!” 

Vanitas hummed, kicking a pebble down the road. 

“You can talk to me, you know.”

His next kick missed. 

“Huh?”

“You seem off today,” Sora said. “And I thought I heard noises from your room last night.”

“Yeah?” Vanitas’s fists curled at his sides. “Well, you didn’t. And I’m never off.”

Sora glanced at him, eyebrows furrowed. “You don’t have to talk to me either, of course. I’m not trying to catch you being weak or trying to say gotcha or anything like that. I just wanted to check in with you and let you know that if there is something bothering you, it’s not something you have to face alone.”

“Right, because friends are power and whatever blah blah blah?” Vanitas rolled his eyes. 

“Yeah, exactly that! And we’re brothers, right? You said so yourself.” He folded his hands behind his head. “That means we’re family, and that means we gotta look out for each other.”

Vanitas scoffed. “Don’t let the obligation weigh you down, hero.”

Sora shook his head. “No way. I care about you is all.”

Vanitas crossed his arms, squeezing his biceps. “Whatever. Your mistake.”

When they reached the dock, there were two canoes tethered to it. Sora stepped down into one of them, offering Vanitas a hand for help. He refused with an upturned nose and promptly almost fell in the water, had Sora not steadied the vessel and caught the back of Vanitas’s jacket. He slouched and grumbled while Sora rowed. 

Riku met them at the play island with a wave. 

“Hey, Sora,” he said with a grin so soft and pleasant, Vanitas could scarcely believe the little bastard version of him that the Organization recruited could have any relation. 

He turned to Vanitas, his face dropping into something more serious without the sugary adoration of a moment ago. “Glad you could make it.” He held his hand out. 

Vanitas looked at it and shoved his own in his pockets. “What can I say, I like a good fight.”

Riku grinned at that. 

“You two should go first,” Sora suggested, stretching his shoulders. 

“You sure?” asked Riku. 

“Definitely. If I spar with Vanitas first, you’ll have the advantage of having watched him, and if I spar with you, then Vanitas will have it.”

Riku shrugged. “If you’re sure.”

“What?” Vanitas cracked his knuckles and stood shoulder width apart. “Scared?”

Riku laughed and took off his jacket, dropping it to the ground and revealing more of his built biceps compared to Vanitas’s own wiry frame. 

Sora sat on the side of the dock while the pair moved further into the sandy clearing. “Ok! You know how it goes! Don’t hold back except for lethal attacks or anything a good cure spell won’t fix!” Sora raised one arm to the sky. “Get ready!”

Riku and Vanitas dropped into fighting stances, only to blink wide eyed at each other when their poses almost matched. Even Sora leaned back, his arm faltering.

“Um, start?” 

Riku recovered first, sliding towards Vanitas with a thrust. Vanitas startled, but managed to sidestep. He raised his keyblade to punish Riku’s backside, but the other whirled and manifested a crystalline shield, not unlike Aqua’s (if more on the purple side), that his attack bounced harmlessly off. 

Vanitas had to admit, Riku was fast. The pair danced around each other in ways Sora never could. Fighting Sora was an exercise in not getting smacked against the battlefield with the power he packed in his swings, but Riku’s ridiculous sword shaped key seemed to be that way for a reason. He played in glancing blows and slashes, like a true swordsman. He fought more like Aqua than Terra in every regard, quick on his toes like a well trained ballerina, yet grounded and not launching himself into the air like Vanitas’s airhead brothers. More alarming, however, was that he fought like Vanitas. 

Riku had his own style sure, but Vanitas found himself parrying moves Xehanort had drilled into him. It made them easy to counter, but Riku was just as well equipped to counter Vanitas. It was also terribly distracting. Vanitas kept finding himself circling back to why? Why did Sora’s bestest friend fight like this? Why did someone given the title of master fight like his own?

Thoughts like that had him lagging behind in reaction time, and the sand didn’t help. It shifted under his feet like it wasn’t ground at all. The sand in the graveyard only covered the hard rock in a dust layer. Whatever faults he might have, he blamed on the terrain, like the flashing arc of Riku’s keyblade that made him dive out of the way. 

As he stood from his roll, a dark firaga barreled towards him, and in catching him so off guard, hit him square in the chest. He staggered back and smacked out the lingering flames, looking up just in time to block a forward slash. 

“You can’t do that!” he sputtered. 

“Why not?” Riku laughed, dancing away from Vanitas’s retaliating swipe. 

“Because! You’re a goody goody guardian of light!”

“Yup!”

Vanitas warped behind Riku and struck. Riku dropped on to his back, which Vanitas thought was a little dramatic considering how light the strike was, especially since it put him on the ground. He was about to take advantage of that disparity in height when Riku threw his legs back and kicked up, smashing into Vanitas’s shoulder and cheek as he sailed past. 

“Ooh, that’s a classic!” Sora shouted from the sidelines. 

“You fight dirty!” Vanitas jumped back as he rubbed the sand from his eyes. 

“I get the job done!” Riku replied in that same airy tone.

Riku was a damned enigma, one that Vanitas now gladly fought dirty back at. He could see a slight shake in Riku’s left wrist, a stiffness in that side’s hip. He favored his right. They were weak points then, probably from previous injuries. So Vanitas pushed his strikes accordingly. It wasn’t the most integrious move he could make, but honor was for the pathetic who needed to come up with rules to hide their inadequacy behind moral compunction. He planted his keyblade in the ground and dragged it with a vicious swipe that sprayed a fan of sand at him. But the bastard dodged it, not with a roll of even a twirl, but by becoming an intangible streak of darkness that dashed through the spray. He rematerialized in front of Vanitas, smacking him hard in the stomach with the flat side of his weapon. 

Vanitas fell back, the wind knocked out of him twice over, leaving him staring at the burning bright blue of the sky. 

Riku’s blade rested an inch over his heart, and Vanitas curled his toes to keep from squirming away from it. 

“Yield?”

Vanitas, wheezed, still out of breath and waved his hand in agreement. He closed his eyes with a frustrated grunt while Sora whistled and clapped. His cuts stung, grains of sand sticking inside. He didn’t think any of them were stitch worthy, but cleaning out the debris would be a major hassle, and the bruising he could start to feel blossoming around his ribs would be a difficult pain to ignore. At least nothing was fractured. 

A soothing balm washed over him, turning the backs of his eyelids green. The pain subsided. He cracked an eye open to see Riku reaching his hand out. 

“Good match,” he said, jerking his hand forward in emphasis. 

Vanitas rolled his eyes, but took it and allowed Riku to pull him effortlessly to his feet. 

“What was that for?” Vanitas asked. 

“What was what for?” Riku asked in kind, casting a cure over himself. 

“That.” Vanitas waved his index finger around at the green leaves fluttering towards the ground. 

“Oh.” Riku’s brows furrowed and his mouth twisted. “I don’t know how you usually do things, but for us, winner always heals their opponent. It’s a sign of respect and reinforces the friendly nature of the fight.”

“Huh.” Vanitas crossed his arms. That was stupid. If the loser didn’t want to need healing, they should do better not to be hit. 

“That was amazing guys!” Sora said, jogging up to them. “I’m not gonna be able to top that performance.”

“You’re right.” Vanitas shook sand out of his hair. 

Sora produced two water bottles from his inventory, handing them over. “Take five, then you’re on, Riku?”

Riku wiped sweat from his face with the edge of his shirt. “Sounds good.”

“Oh! And Vanitas,” Sora said, waving a hand over the tears in his brother’s clothes. “I can take those over to the fairies later and have them fixed up for you.”

Vanitas raised an eyebrow and sipped at his water. He’d just been planning on finding a sewing kit and fixing them himself, as he had before donning a self healing suit of darkness. He didn’t know about any fairies, but it certainly sounded easier. 

Without replying, he took Sora’s spot on the dock and watched him spar with Riku, trying not to yawn. 

The pair’s closeness was obvious. They moved like water around each other, their knowledge of each other’s move sets intimate. They bantered and laughed without losing intensity. Vanitas could never imagine Ventus and his friends sparring like this. The cracks in their friendships made them easy to break and manipulate. But just watching Sora and Riku fight, there was no way Xehanort or anyone else could sever that bond or wrap it around their fingers. It was no wonder then, how someone like Sora could win. 

A dull, ordinary boy. That’s what Xehanort had called Sora back in the graveyard whenever he came up. That was a mistake of the master for Vanitas to remember. He was foolish and arrogant and underestimated. Maybe the keyblade hadn’t chosen Sora, maybe the stars hadn’t intended to write him a grand destiny, but the bonds he forged made him a neigh unstoppable force. And it made people like Riku his unmovable pillars of support. The seekers of darkness could never accomplish that. Not when they all hated each other and had zero coordination. Sora and his friends, even those he just met, could team up their attacks. Even Aqua and Ventus manger to synchronize moves against him, but Vanitas wouldn’t know where to even start to harmonize with the amalgamate he’d been assigned to fight with. 

After a few rounds, switching between each other, the three of them sat against the short stone wall, wrung out tired. The sun had started to dip below the endless horizon by then. 

“Hey, I’ll go get us some coconuts,” Sora said, perking up and dashing off towards the trees in the platform above the shack. 

“I don’t know how he does it,” Riku laughed softly, watching Sora beat the trees mercilessly with the blunt edge of Kingdom Key. 

“Why do you fight like that?” Vanitas asked, cutting right to the chase. The question had lingered in his mind all afternoon. 

“Huh?” Riku blinked. “Oh. Right, that.” He rubbed the back of his head. 

Vanitas fixed him with what he hoped was a serious, no nonsense look. 

Riku sighed. “Um, so a couple years ago, ugh this is so embarrassing.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I may have been convinced by Xehanort’s heartless to open a door that unleashed darkness and heartless on this world and then been groomed by him and Maleficent to embrace the darkness, ending in me being possessed by Ansem.”

Vanitas wrinkled his nose. “Ansem?”

Riku shook his head. “No, sorry. Xehanort’s heartless. He just stole Ansem’s name. It’s...confusing.”

Vanitas snorted. “You’re like Terra the second.”

Riku sighed again. “Yeah...before he took over me, he was giving me some basic sword fighting instructions. Just by word and basic gesture through, on account of him being basically a robed potato sack, but I guess I picked up the rest from osmosis when he was in control,” he explained, keeping his eyes on the gentle waves. 

“Hm.” Vanitas crossed his arms. “So why are you a master?”

Riku startled at the question, then blinked up at the clouds. “I don’t really know.”

Vanitas sneered. “Oh, please. Don’t get philosophical with me.”

“Well, I guess it’s because Sora almost fell into the darkness, so Xehanort could make a vessel out of him, and I didn’t?”

“Sora?”

“Yeah.”

Vanitas pointed. “That kid.”

Sora used a reflect to avoid a brown coconut falling on his head. 

“Yep.”

“How the hell did that happen?”

Riku shrugged. “He was tricked?”

“Like you?”

“Oh no. Not like me. No playing to his insecurities or anything like that. I’m talking full on illusions.”

Vanitas watched Sora coolly. “Doesn’t seem particularly fair, does it?”

Riku looked at his feet. “Not at all.”

“HA!” Vanitas laughed, harsh and sharp. 

Riku snapped his head to face him. 

“Oh, man, what nonsense hypocrisy. Hilarious really. Terra shows a little bit of darkness in his exam, consisting of hitting bubbles and sparring, mind you, and he gets denied the title of master. Then here you are blasting dark firagas and dark rolling, and that’s just dandy! You get _possessed_ because you thought the darkness was a cool new toy-it is by the way-and you were made a master anyway. Sora gets lured into Xehanort’s crinkly, arthritic hands with actual mind games, and doesn’t even get possessed, and that takes away every time he did all the leg work in saving the day?”

Riku’s expression was tight, like he was in pain. “Yeah, that about sums it up.”

Vanitas snickered. “You lights really are so stupid. You’re lucky Sora isn’t Terra and didn’t take his exam failure as a jumping off point to the deep end.”

“I’m aware.”

Sora returned then, still sweaty but with three coconuts under his arms. “Ok! Finally! You wouldn’t believe what a hard time the trees were giving me today.”

Vanitas glanced over and saw a number of green coconuts piled against the trunk. 

“Anyway, here.” Sora lined the coconuts up, summoned a silver blade with a lion’s head at the end and teeth in a arrow shape, and swiftly cut the fruit in two. 

Riku scooped up the halves, saving some of the murky liquid inside. He handed a pair to Vanitas, and then to Sora once he banished his blade and plopped down next to them. 

Vanitas observed how the islanders sipped from the shells. The liquid was thicker than water, but sweet and a little earthy. Then he followed how they scooped out the white flesh. It was soft and squishy and similarly sweet and refreshing. The group ate their snack with the setting sun, and Vanitas felt a calm wash over him like a balm with the vibrant colors and soft drone of Sora and Riku’s chatter. 

—

Riku woke up. He frowned. He’d been having a particularly nice dream about a picnic in the King’s garden. 

His phone buzzed again, the noise disturbing against his bedside table. 

He rolled over with a groan and caught it before it could vibrate off the edge. The sudden brightness of the screen made him wince, but he rubbed his crusty eyes and persevered until he could read the notification. Whoever was messaging him at this hour, better have a good reason. 

He immediately regretted putting his number in Vanitas’s contacts. 

_Vanitas: hey  
Vanitas: come fight me _

Riku stared at the message before glancing at the clock at the top. 3 AM. 

He knew Vanitas liked fighting. Aqua, Terra, and Ventus has told him enough about how the guy seemed to jump at the opportunity to hash it out, but it was three in the morning! Who wants a sparring match at 3 AM?

_Riku: what?  
Vanitas: you heard me  
Riku: do you know what time it is?  
Vanitas: meet me at your stupid island im already on my way there  
Riku: are you serious?  
Vanitas: fight. Me. Unless your scaaaared_

Riku had half a mind to shut off his phone right then and there and nestle back into his sheets, but something in his heart wouldn’t let him. He just couldn’t believe Vanitas would reach out like this for a simple spar, in the middle of the night no less. Honestly, he hadn’t expected Vanitas to ever use his phone number at all, let alone just a few nights after their meetup on the beach and for this. 

With a dreary sign, Riku placed his feet on the cold floor and changed his clothes. He pocketed his phone and padded out of his house. 

With any luck, he could convince Vanitas to knock it off and go back to Sora’s before anyone noticed his absence and assumed something. 

The breeze carried salt and the promise of rain, and it raised goosebumps on Riku’s arms. The ocean churned at the docks. He noticed one of the canoes missing, but decided to forgo one himself, instead electing to glide rather than fight against the waves. 

Vanitas was already there, pacing. He hadn’t noticed his company yet, so Riku took the chance to look him over. He was barefoot, in pajama pants and a loose tee shirt. It revealed criss crossing scars that marred all up and down his arms and made Riku vaguely ill. Oh. And he was soaking wet. 

“Take a spill out there?” Riku asked. 

Vanitas jumped. “There you are! I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”

Riku crossed his arms and came closer. “It is three in the morning. I don’t know how you did things back where you came from, but that’s not really a socially acceptable thing here.”

Vanitas picked at raised skin with one hand and shrugged. “Yet, here you are.”

“Hm. You should really go home though.”

Vanitas raised his arms above his head, cracking his fingers, wrists, elbows, and shoulders with sharp snaps. “I came here to fight.”

“I realize. But can’t this wait until the morning?”

Vanitas summoned his keyblade with a flick of his wrist. “No.” He lunged. 

He didn’t have his usual speed, and while Riku gasped and scrambled to block, it wasn’t as difficult as anticipated. Void Gear clanked against Braveheart with a spark, and Riku met Vanitas’s eyes. They were wide and darting all over the place from their weapons, to Riku, to over his shoulder. A few days ago, Vanitas had had a steely gaze, eyes focused slits. 

Riku pushed him back with ease, Vanitas stumbling back on unsteady feet. 

Staying on the defensive, Riku observed Vanitas as he came barreling in with attacks. They were...sloppy. Really sloppy. More than Sora in Traverse Town, more than Roxas with a weapon he didn’t remember. They weren’t the graceful and deadly steps of someone with years of training. He was out of breath too, his chest heaving unevenly far too early in the match. He kept swinging at Riku’s guard, not pulling any tricks or magic, just trying to hit a target without really looking at it. 

“Come on!” Vanitas shouted. “Fight back!”

Riku frowned. “No, I don’t think I will.”

Vanitas snarled and attacked harder, but with no more finesse. He hit Braveheart like it had personally offended him, grunting and growling at it. His keyblade shook in his hold. 

As a test, Riku moved to kick Vanitas’s feet out from under him, telegraphing the movement as he went, but he wasn’t stopped, and Vanitas hit the sand. He blinked dumbly up at the stars, and then at Riku like he had only just seen him. His lip curled and he sprung back to his feet with a waver before rushing forward once more. 

Riku sidestepped and grabbed his arm. “What is up with you?”

Vanitas thrashed in the grip, clawing at Riku’s glove. “Nothing! Now let go and fight like a man!”

Riku did as he was as asked, releasing his fingers and letting Vanitas eat sand once more. 

Over and over Vanitas tried to get a hit on Riku only to be seated again. Each time, he grew more desperate, more breathless, until he staggered back. To Riku’s horror, his whole torso seemed to spasm and he gagged. The sound was dry like the insides of his throat squeezing against itself and then with another choke, it turned wet. 

Vanitas collapsed on his hands and knees, Void Gear discarded to the wayside without even bothering to be dismissed. Heat lighting flashed purple in the distance. 

Riku disarmed himself and ran forward, kneeling beside Vanitas as he retched. “Vanitas, what-“

Vanitas coughed, black droplets flying out his mouth and sweeping away as high tide washed over his fingers. 

Riku just stared. Immediately his mind began to panic over possibilities. Was Vanitas hurt? Did he have internal bleeding? That stuff was pretty dark, but he’d heard vomit that looked like coffee grounds was a really bad sign. Would a cure or potion fix it? Or would be have to drag Vanitas kicking and hissing to a hospital? To Aerith maybe?

Vanitas’s hand shot out and twisted in the fabric of Riku’s shirt, pulling him down. 

“ _Xehanort’s heartless_ ,” he huffed. “How did you get rid of him?”

Riku tried to pry the fingers away from his chest, but they held like steel. “I don’t know? The overwhelming desire to protect my friends? Then Sora killed him.”

Vanitas shook his head roughly. “But a piece of him stuck with you, yes? Haunted you?”

“I...I guess? I mean I had to face him in Castle Oblivion, and then there was that whole thing wi-“

“How.” Vanitas’s grip tightened. “Did you. Get. _Rid of him?_ ”

Riku held onto Vanitas’s wrist. “A machine exploded and cleared my heart. It kind of just happened. Why? What is-“

“Pah!” Vanitas shoved Riku back. “Useless! A machine exploded? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” He pulled at his hair. 

Riku grabbed his arms, forced him to sit up and look at him. “I’m being serious. What is wrong with you?”

Vanitas let go of his hair with one hand, instead grabbing Riku’s left one and twisting his wrist until he let go with a hiss. “None of your business, prig.”

“Oh, yes it is. If you don’t tell me, I’m going to assume Xehanort is trying to come back through you somehow and put you down.” 

Vanitas bared his teeth. 

Riku summoned Braveheart. 

“He won’t leave me alone!” Vanitas shouted, leaving gouges in the sand with his nails. “Every time I try to sleep, he’s there! It’s like he never left! Like I never got out! I keep waiting for him to show up and make good on his word, but he _never does!_ ”

An axe flapper rose from the ground. Vanitas crushed his head in his fist. 

He looked up, startling at Riku, like he’d forgotten he was even there. 

“Well?!” 

Riku jolted. “What?”

“Gonna kill me or not?”

Riku sucked in a breath. “Vanitas, are you...having...nightmares?”

Vanitas barked out a laugh. “Like some weak kneed, jelly filled, traumatized brat?”

Riku let his keyblade dissipate. “I have nightmares sometimes.”

“I bet you do,” Vanitas sneered. 

“We-we all do. It’s ok. It’s normal.”

“Maybe for you lot.”

Riku looked hard at Vanitas, saw the deep bags carving under his eyes, the sunken and sallow skin around rest of his face. 

“How much sleep have you gotten this week?”

“ _Enough._ ”

Riku hummed with pity. “I might be able to help.”

Vanitas eyed him cautiously. 

“With the nightmares-“

“I don’t have nightmares.”

“I’m something called a dreameater. I can fight off nightmares. I’ve done it for Sora a bunch and for others sometimes too.”

“I told you-“

“ _Vanitas._ ”

“ _Fine._ We’ll try your stupid plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you know how hard it was to write someone having a positive experience while eating coconut? Do you?

**Author's Note:**

> Haha uh oh oh no whoops! Oh no!


End file.
